Frogwares was founded in 2000 in Ukraine and Ireland by French expatriates. Waël Amr is the CEO. The name "Frogwares" comes from the nickname "froggies" used in Anglo-Saxon countries to designate people of French origin. When it was created, the studio was made up of a team of six people which then expanded to reach eighty employees in 2018. The studio quickly specialized in the Sherlock Holmes adventure games series which ensured its success. With Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Persian Carpet, Frogwares began to develop casual games. The studio created in 2011 a dedicated subsidiary, Waterlily Games. The casual games produced by the studio are often distributed exclusively for download, with the exception of the "Sherlock Holmes" casual games, which are also published on physical media. In 2010, Frogwares released World of Battles, its first multiplayer MMORTS. World of Battles is a strategy game which takes place in a fantastic medieval universe where the player trains and controls an army and must succeed in defeating other armies controlled by other players to recover gems. In 2013, Frogwares opened a second subsidiary, 3AM Studios, to release , a strategic sci-fi shooter based on the magnetization of cubes and platforms to move through each level. The game is considered a Portal-like.
Games developed
Casual adventure games
Casual games are developed under the name Waterlily Games. This sub-studio is focused on casual, hidden object, and light adventure games for PC and iOS.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Persian Carpet
Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of the Frozen City for Nintendo 3DS
Litigations
The studio has encountered several disputes with its business partners. In 2002, the distribution of the game was made by intermediaries who did not pay the studio honestly: Frogwares filed several lawsuits against them. The studio then chose Focus Home Interactive as a licensee from 2004-2005 to 2014-2015. Focus Home Interactive claimed to be the publisher of the games, but was in fact a distribution intermediary which did not participate in the financing of games. The relationship between the two companies ended in a dispute in the fall of 2019 when Focus Home Interactive's license ended. The two companies no longer being partners, Focus refused to complete the formalities so that the exploitation rights automatically revert to Frogwares on the online download platforms. The situation has resulted in the temporary withdrawal of most Frogwares games from these platforms. The development studio, who remains the sole owner of the rights, had to initiate new certifications and online publishing processes for each of its games so that they are available again on the websites concerned. The games thus reappeared gradually at the start of 2020.
